Install Gnome Classic Desktop in Ubuntu 14.04

April 20, 2014

This simple tutorial is going to show you how to install the Gnome Classic desktop environment in Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Thar.

Ubuntu 14.04 gets new window decorations inside Unity and so far it does not support changing window control buttons to the right of title bar. So if you want your window buttons on the right, you may switch to the Gnome Classic desktop.

Alt + right-click

Install Gnome Classic:

Press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, paste the command below and hit run. Type in your password when prompt.

sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install gnome-session-fallback

Once installed, log out the current session. When you’re in log-in screen, click the logo icon and select log in to Gnome Flashback (Compiz) or Gnome Flashback (Metacity).

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Now the hibernate does not work on ubuntu 14.04 gnome (whatever gnome classic or standard gnoùme) . It works perfect with unity. Just like it did on 12.04 with gnome That’s off course again a very serious error off gnome self. with a little tweaking gnome 3-4 which was used on ubuntu 12.04 worked perfect. For versions between gnome 3-4 up to 3-8 I don’t know. Gnome 3-10 is actually very bad and 3-12 is a disaster. Every version gnome is into severe regression. Full off bugs . They added a wheater plugin and such stuff. Perhaps nice for some persons.

They just took away all utility of gnome . No menus anymore. You can’t hibernate you’re screen anymore. No desktop launcher . And very buggy ram eating processor eating. And crashes all over.

This is not the fault off ubuntu self. That’s gnome which suck’s. The problem is that there is no any good alternatif to gnome. Wheater we are with to old fashion design and running into problems with more advanced graphical applications when using desktops like xfce.

Ubuntu self is perfect for those who are happy with unity. But unity is very very limited. Optimum for a newbie user who does not need managable things and utility’s. It is perfect for those who only need to go to there facebook or other social stuff write a letter send an email and such simple tasks. But nothing more.

Whe are facing now a real problem in linux thank’s to gnome. Linus Thorvald the base developper off linux core did warned about it already more then two years ago. He had right. Thank’s to gnome Linux is lossing users. And almost gaining any extra. The result is that hardware developpers are now already removing support to linux in there basic hardware and firmware.

Did a fresh install of 14.04 (replacving 12.10), but left home partition alone.
Unity doesn’t work with old user.
Flashback Compiz has no window borders.
Flashback Metacity works, but unable to change wallpapers (same for all Gnomes in 14.04) and most of the old themes are no longer available.
And the Indicator applet keeps on crashing.

I am right in thinking that 14.04 is an LTS release, ie. nice and stable.

We have been using Ubuntu 11.04 with the Gnome 2 desktop. Being a longtime Mac user – our main computer is still a Mac – I regard the Unity desktop as a triumph of cosmetics over functionality, because it totally lacks user configurability of data access and has only limited user configurability of software access. But only the Unity desktop is supplied with Ubuntu 14.04 and apparently Gnome 3 is no better so it would be pointless to download it. I considered reverting to the last distribution with Gnome 2 but a friend suggested that I first check “Classic desktop for Ubuntu 14.04”. I downloaded that and found it to be very similar to Gnome 2, so I can now go ahead and upgrade our other Linux computer.

The desktops currently available would put most Mac users off of Linux, because the user interface is far more important than any other differences between operating systems or distributions – you start with how you are going to use a machine not with under-bonnet details. The Classic desktop for Ubuntu 14.04 is functionally a near equivalent to the Mac but it would be better if it offered uninterrupted inline access from user-defined access points. Or why not make the Unity Launcher a genuinely user configurable equivalent of the Mac’s Dock instead of the grossly inferior imitation that it currently is? Not everybody will want this level of functionality but it should be there for those who do.

When finished go to Menu > System Tools > dconf-editor
In the window that opens, on the left-hand side
Click the small arrows next to
> org
> gnome
> desktop
Click on the word interface

In the right-side pane, scroll down to gtk-color-scheme – click on the line to highlight it
on the highlighted gtk-color-scheme line, directly under the text on the line above (black:white:gray etc.) – click once
type in selected_bg_color:#2a5a8a
press enter

Run linux from a live disc, use gparted, and delete all linux partitions.
Note: Ubuntu based discs may time out during long operations.
Resizing the windows partition might take a long time.
Knoppix or something else might be better.

Installed 14.04 (on a new clean, no Windows machine), then Classic (plus a whole bunch of other stuff to bring it up to my trusty 10.04 system). Seemed ok at first but then on reboot: 1) selected screen size reverts to 1920×1080, I’m using a TV at the moment but this size pushes stuff off the edges, smaller size fits; 2) the “Classic” button is now at the bottom right hand corner and not the top RH corner plus it’s “auto-hide”, ie you have to move mouse down to bottom edge to expose Classic Button to select anything from a menu. How do you fix these issues to make it behave – sensibly?

Have upgraded to 14.01 with classic desktop. Under Appearance on the Behavior tab the “Enable workspaces” is checked. If I right click on the lower right hand corner I get the Preferences. In Preferences I ahve the show all workspaces in 2 rows but when I enter 4 in the Workspaces then close and reopen Preferences it will only show 1 Workspace. Any suggestions?

Hi, I have installed the Gnome Classic with these commands and I have a little problem now. My system doesn’t start. There is black screen on my laptop and monitor turns off. Keyboard is working. I was trying to type password, reboot, but nothing happens. I can start Ubuntu while choosing the Advanced options in Grub, and taking the first option. Do you have some ideas how to fix it without reinstalling it? I don;t like Unity and don’t want to reinstall whole system.